Dante Cunningham

So ya know, sometimes it’s good to be late to the party. Ya get to seem like you had a lot of more important shizz to do, if it’s lame it won’t matter as much if you dipset early… If only that principle worked in fantasy analysis!

After a fantastic weekend, the buzz to go and grab Terrence Jones was like a hot party right in its peak. “New York’s hottest new club is JELLY BONES! Located on the Lower Upper Side, this random home invasion is the creation of legally drunk clothing designer Nick Nolte and Gabana. As you walk in, you’ll be handed a glass of champagne – or is it piss?” With the Rockets hesitancy to stretch him out, adding Josh Smith back in the day, and the return of Dwight Howard at some point, I was like, “F that shizz, sounds like a lame sausage party!” But Houston put TJones in the starting line-up last night, and he went straight Nolte for 15/15/0/1/2 making 6-9 FG. He’s kinda looked like what the optimistic Kenneth Faried backers were hoping for! Plus he can hit threes! Now a must-own in all leagues, and I certainly would be dropping Manimal for him. That said, when Dwight is back, it might not be as rockin’ as JELLY BONES at midnight. It could be another month before Dwight is out there though, so TJones my Jelly Bones! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy NBA action:

Geez, open the triage, we might not have any beds open in our Fantasy Basketball Infirmary after this weekend! Way to sully the excitement of players debuting on new teams…

I guess an injury that made a lot of people surly is a year with no more Sully. Stress reactions have been claiming lots of games lately, and Jared Sullinger will be shut down for the year with lingering issues in his foot. I blame Brad Stevens! Gives me stress reactions…

The Celtics have been anything but consistent with rotations, but Kelly Olynyk should be primed for a little consistency whence he’s back from his kankle. Right now it’s Tyler Zeller manning the 5 with Brandon Bass at the 4, and those three should split most of the big man minutes. Zeller’s nice %s with the big man stats can be usable on a lot of teams and Bass, who went 15/5/1/0/2 on 7-11 FG in 40 minutes last night always seems to be underrated. Olynyk of Nazareth is the guy to own, but he’s not miles ahead of the other two. I wouldn’t mind a spec add for any of the bunch, but not dropping anyone of too much value. Here’s what else went down over an injury-plagued weekend of fantasy basketball action:

Little was known about the severity of LaMarcus Aldridge’s thumb injury when he missed Wednesday’s game. I was texting with Razzball’s own JB about the Blazers and JB voiced his concern that Aldridge would “be out a while.” After undergoing another MRI on Thursday, the Trail Blazers announced that Aldridge would be out 6-8 weeks with a torn ligament in his left thumb.

Is JB some sort of psychic? As his college roommate, I can neither confirm nor deny that, but what I do know is that owners will be hard pressed to replace Aldridge in their lineups. He was averaging 23.2 ppg, 10.2 rpg, and 1.2 bpg. Those are some pretty huge shoes to fill.

The Blazers are already shallow in the frontcourt, since Robin Lopez and Joel Freeland are also ailing. As a result, they will use Dorell Wright and Thomas Robinson more at the four. Wright started Wednesday against the Suns (15 points, 5 assists, 3 threes), but then Robinson started Thursday’s game against the Celtics (9 points, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks). It’s unclear who will start or if coach Terry Stotts will play matchups. Unless someone gets the majority of minutes, Wright and Robinson will eat into each other’s playing time, limiting their fantasy appeal.

To make matters worse, Nicolas Batum left early in the third quarter with a wrist injury. An upcoming MRI this weekend will reveal more information, but this could be even more devastating to the Blazers.

After a tough groin injury, we really weren’t sure how long DeMar DeRozan would be Frozen. “Let it go! Let it go! Blah dee, blah dee, blah…” Trying to reach out to our younger readers.

DD is back and immediately entices with immense cleavage! Younger readers, alienated. DeRozan returned after missing a month and a half/21 games for a very solid 20/4/4/1/1 game hitting 9-14 FG. It was against the soon to be relegated Sixers, so there’s that, but this is mighty encouraging. In a game where Toronto didn’t need him at all, he started, got 29 minutes, and looks healthy for the stretch run. Toronto letting the DD out! I bet chicks aren’t letting the DD out this time of year in Canada, sheesh it’s cold in NC! Lots of ripples with DeRozan back out there. The biggest is it looks like James Johnson can go in several leagues, as sad an epitaph as it is… Played only 15 minutes for 5/2/2/0/0. Some of that was probably matchup based since the Sixers backup depth is in guards (and Amir Johnson played well), but it’s a swift death. Terrence Ross also played only 18 minutes as the starter and scored 2 Pts without doing anything else. Ross is barely 16-teamer worthy now, as one of the deepest lineups in the NBA is healthy top to bottom. The Raptors bench could probably contend for a playoff spot in the East. Well they’d have to replace Tyler Hansbrough. I think one of those inflatable flailing arms things has more ball skills than Psycho T… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Who doesn’t remember Remember the Titans? “If you have to remind people what the joke in the title is from, it sucks JB!” Thanks ghost of Grey! I’ll work on improving the rest of the week if you can sneak in and Hollow Man me a mustache ride.

Hard to believe Remember the Titans is so old. Who woulda thought Will Patton’s annoying ass daughter would be getting torn apart by some monster Russian boxer. “I must break you.” And who woulda thought a guy who had bounced around the D league, played in China, barely played in 2011-12 the last time we saw him in the NBA, would break fantasy basketball waiver wires?! Hassan Whiteside absolutely tore apart the Clippers Klitschko-style for 23/16/0/2/2 yesterday afternoon, in case you missed it and weren’t watching NBA. Not like there was any other sport with important games on… Mr. Whiteside hit 10-13 FG and 3-4 FT (although he’s not the best FT shooter), and most importantly started the second half over Chris Andersen. Birdman had bid flu with a -17 +/- and Whiteside was brightside for +26. No disparity there! And somehow Slim’s Heat won. I’d be very surprised if Whiteside doesn’t start tomorrow against the Lakers, and he’s leap-frogged a lot of the fringy big men. Alex Len is so then! Jordan Hill can take a chill pill! Jusuf Nurkic can… Nope, he’s still Jamba Jus! Love my smoothies… But Hassan is likely a must-own in all leagues. Hopefully you grabbed him yesterday or can this morning, so your bigs can tear apart your opponents Klitschko-style. Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action:

In what ended up being a nailbitier for the Cavs in MSG, Kyrie Irving was unstoppable shooting 12-18 FG (3-6 3PTM 10-11 FT). Heat check! Just don’t say that about LeBron when he’s hot… Uncle Drew making NY Blue! Gave him 37 big ones for a 37/3/2/2/0 with LeBron James assuming the point-forward role racking up a diming with 12 assists. Freaky Friday! Well I guess it’s Freaky Thursday, but I like the idea of Kyrie Irving as an angsty teenager in kinda a goth phase… But while he just “doesn’t connect” with Jamie Lee Curtis, he’s been one of fantasy’s biggest surprises this year. As mentioned on the Pod yestderday by our guest Justin Phan, for Kyrie to be averaging MORE points a game from last year with the Cavs big three now amassed, it’s amazeballs. Coming into last night’s game, Kyrie was 5th in per game value and 6th in total value according to the BB Monster metrics, and probably passes Damian Lillard for 5th in total value after this bigun. While the assists have understandably fallen from 6.1 last year to under 5 thus far in 14-15, I don’t really think there’s anything unsustainable. Maybe shooting over 48% and over 42% from deep fall a wee bit, but with Lebron and Kevin Love out there, I do see him having career-highs in both. And the big kicker – TO were at 1.7 last night and will remain well under 2.0 a game even with 3 against the Knicks. Plus that great FT volume… and baby you got a stew goin’! I feel like I’ve revelled at every single one of Kyrie’s stats… So go get him if you can! Drafted in the late 2nd/early 3rd in most drafts, if you can only spend 2nd round value to bring in Uncle Drew, it’ll make you party it up on Championship Sunday of your H2H final like Drunk Uncle! Here’s what else went down in the three games last night:

Probably because he’s, well, Elton Brand, I haven’t paid much attention to him. It’s like telling me, “Hey JB, Robert Parrish is on the wire, what’da think?!” Brand is getting tons of run lately with Gustavo Ayon and Pero Antic still hurt decimating the Hawks 5s (and Paul Millsap out as well), to the tune of 40+ minutes the past two games and 30+ in 4 of 5. And grandpa Elton topped off his big run with a rainbow line last night, 7/13/3/2/2 in 42 minutes. That’s like an Andrew Bogut line! Had a comment last night asking if Brand is a flash in the pan. More like flash in the bedpan! Yeah, I don’t see any sustainability here with none of the aforementioned hurt guys really out that long. But hey, maybe a one-game stream? The Hawks are going at Boston tonight who lack any sort of consistency up front as well and Brand could get ya another multi-cat gem. Here’s what else I saw last night in fantasy hoops:

As we mentioned a few months ago, the Philadelphia 76ers D is bad. Like D League bad. They could use some D league! At one point, they were close to 8 points a game worse than the the 29th worst team defense. But with the Lakers having all sorts of problems, they’ve entered the bottom feeders with Philly giving up a league worst 109.9 a game, LA now 29th at 106.2, then third is at 103.8. Suffice to say – soft D. Kinda like in the word djent. Any metal fans out there? Or in Django Unchained. The big benefactor last night was another huge game from Jeff Green, who shot 11-18 (5-7 3PTM 9-12 FT) for 36/8/2/0/2. Should’ve been doing this all year! Green had that even bigger 39-point outburst two weeks ago against the Wizards, so that’s two biguns sandwiched with cold cuts of bleh. Kinda like a $5 footlong when you choose meatball but have to eat it later… Stevens said a couple of days ago that they need to get Green the ball in the post and in transition more. I guess that equals making 5 of your 7 threes! Hah. While I do think Green will be better, and the return and minutes exansion of Rajon Rondo to help create better oppotunies will help, if you can get some really solid top-60ish value in a sell-high, run and do it. You may be saying, “top-60, this JB is reaching too high!” Heading into the year, ranked 63 in Yahoo and ESPN at 58! And I had him at… Yeah I don’t wanna talk about it. So getting draft day value at 100% would be very nice. Much lower than that and I’m still holding. Here’s what else I saw on a busy night of NBA action:

Even though he looks exactly like the youngest kid from Malcolm in the Middle, Steve Blake is playing like an NBA PG in the top. Last night’s 16 Asts gives him 10+ in four straight, and starting to remind us of Chris Paul who has started the year with the ten straight 10+ dime games. You can’t go anywhere in LA without someone trying to give you a dimebag! I think that’s going to be a new term I’m going to add into the Razzball lexicon, 10+ assists equals a dimebag. As in, “the Lakers got so high last night with Steve Blake handing out a dimebag!” Pretty soon it won’t even be a crime anywhere. Rasheed Wallace is like, “man I played at the wrong time!” Blake is an obvious must-own in all leagues, and I think will be all year. He’s been D-Antoni-ed. Here’s what else I saw across fantasy hoops over the weekend:

Sooooo… Last night just happened. It was the wildest night of fantasy hoops that I could ever remember. Sure my memory isn’t exactly like Ken Jennings, but yea… Definitely going to break the “what the hey?!” record! The Fantasy Basketball world just stood still. It was just like the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still. Is that Keanu Reeves? What is Jaden Smith doing here? Wait, is this an actual plot? There’s just too much crazy to care about these special effects! There were like, a million three pointers last night. Tony Wroten had a triple double.Ok, who had Wroten in the triple-double pool? I think if you had bet on that in Vegas you coulda turned a dollar into owning the state of Nevada. 18/10/11 while shooting 7-18. A lot of Philly stats got boosted by the Rockets pace, and if you hadn’t heard yet, Michael Carter-Williams was a very late scratch with a sore foot. What are they feeding these guards in Philly? I think it’s obvious that to be a good NBA PG you must diet solely on cheesesteaks. But enough meandering, let’s go straight into the nitty gritty, the CGI effects if you will, for the reason why you’re here: